


The Sky At Night

by sunsetmog



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Insomnia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-28 03:49:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12597472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmog/pseuds/sunsetmog
Summary: There’s a little piece of paper on his bedside table, torn from the bottom of a notepad.Insomnia Alliance, it says, in Louis’s chicken scratch handwriting.9pm-7am, then the telephone number.Or: Louis can't sleep, and Nick's the one who answers the phone in the middle of the night.





	The Sky At Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eiqhties](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eiqhties/gifts).



> Thank you to two of my lovely friends for reading this, holding my hand through the difficult bits, and for being generous with their time and support. Much appreciated. 
> 
> **eiqhties** , I hope you enjoy this. Your prompt was lovely. <3

It’s three in the morning, and Louis can’t sleep.

He stares up at the ceiling, at the patches of light there from the streetlights outside, the little trailing pathways of headlights as the traffic lights down below change and the cars start to move again. 

He’s left the curtains open. He’s not scared of the dark. 

He’s just tired of its company. 

~*~

Louis doesn’t sleep. He hasn’t in months. Not properly. Not through the night. He dozes in fits and starts, sometimes falling asleep moments after his head hits the pillow. Then it’s 3am, or 2am, or 4am, or if he’s really lucky, 5am, and he’s awake, and it’s just him. 

The world’s really fucking quiet in the middle of the night. 

His brain, though, that’s really fucking loud. 

~*~

He’s tried the usual stuff. The stuff he remembers from being little, the cups of warm milk, the biscuits, the counting sheep. He’s been doing it for months. He’s mostly stopped now. It never works anyway. 

For a while, he’d tried weed before bed. In the hollow corners of the night, it had made his brain louder. 

Now he just wants it all to fucking stop. 

There’s a little piece of paper on his bedside table, torn from the bottom of a notepad. 

_Insomnia Alliance_ , it says, in Louis’s chicken scratch handwriting. _9pm-7am_ , then the telephone number. It’s a London one. 

He hasn’t tried the unusual. 

~*~

He sits in his living room with his feet up on the windowsill. The window’s open, the smoke from his cigarette making some kind of vague effort towards making its way outside. He’s not supposed to smoke in the flat. He’s not supposed to do a lot of things. 

The phone rings twice before it’s answered. 

“Hello, you’ve reached Insomnia Alliance. I’m Nick.” The voice is northern, kind of dull around the edges, like tiredness has worn him down. 

“Hi,” Louis says. His voice is a little gruff from misuse. He clears his throat. “Hey.”

“Thanks for calling,” Nick says. “How can I help tonight?”

“It’s an insomnia support line,” Louis says. “I’m hardly calling because I missed _Match of the Day_.”

There’s a small huff of breath from down the other end of the line. “Fair do’s. Are you having trouble sleeping tonight?”

“I have trouble sleeping every night, Nick.” His name rolls off Louis’s tongue, the _k_ staying a little longer than Louis might have liked. 

“You’re not alone. Why don’t you take me through your routine, and I’ll see if I can offer you any suggestions.”

Louis feels suddenly, desperately exhausted. “It’s not going to help,” he says. “Nothing fucking helps.”

“Try me,” Nick says gently. “Why don’t you start with your name? If we’re going to be having a chat tonight, it’ll be nice to have a name to go with the voice.”

“It’s Louis.” His cigarette has mostly burned down to the filter. He takes a last inhale before flicking the butt out of the window. He shouldn’t be doing that either. He’s not a fucking idiot. He’s just so fucking tired. 

“Good name,” Nick says. “Strong. Why don’t you talk me through your evening first, hey? Paint me a picture.”

This isn’t going to help. “Same as usual. I don’t know. Came home from work. Ate my dinner. Had a beer. Watched the telly. Went to bed. Fell asleep. Woke up again. Stared at the ceiling for a bit. Smoked a cig. Rang you.”

“Sometimes you can coach your body into good habits.” Nick almost sounds like he hasn’t heard a word Louis’s just said. He also sounds like he’s reading from a script. “A strong night time routine can often mean the difference between your body being ready to sleep and not.”

“You’re reading from the same webpages I’ve read,” Louis says. “None of it makes a fucking bit of difference.”

“No phones, no laptops, no iPads for at least ninety minutes before you sleep,” Nick goes on. "Try having a bath or a shower, and getting into your pyjamas at the point you put your electronics down. Cut down your caffeine. Try not having any after lunch. There are nice decaffeinated tea bags now, and there’s always decaf coffee. Camomile tea is nice and relaxing before bed. Make your bed in the morning, so when you get into it at night, it feels inviting.”

“Do you get paid for reading this stuff out down the phone?” 

Nick makes a soft sound. It sounds like a huffed breath. “A bit,” he says finally. 

“Does it ever work for anyone?”

Nick sighs. “It’s not like people call me back to tell me they’re asleep. Must do, right? Stands to reason. Someone out there must be necking coffee at half nine at night and confused why they’re still awake at three.”

Louis fumbles with the drawstring of his pyjama bottoms. “Suppose,” he says finally.

“It’s got to be worth a try, though, right?”

“Making my bed and having a bath? God knows.” There’s a pause. “I’m so tired of not being able to sleep.”

“I know,” Nick says. There’s an even longer pause. “Smoking isn’t going to help, you know.”

“Makes me feel better, though.”

“Try a warm drink and a biscuit instead.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “They’re paying you to say that, right?”

Nick huffs a laugh. “What do you think?”

“I think you sound tired,” Louis says. “And I think I should go to bed.”

“It is the middle of the night.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” 

After he’s hung up, he taps his half empty box of Marlboro Reds against his knee. He’s still awake.  
~*~

His bath’s too small to properly lay out in. His knees are bent up. There’s an ash tray resting on the closed lid of the toilet. He’d bought a bottle of Tesco bubble bath on his way home from work, a litre for 85p. It had promised to relax him. 

It just gives him more time to think. 

He’d lived here with a friend, once, back in the day. The two of them squashed into a one bedroom flat, Louis taking over the living room as his bedroom, always hanging out on each other’s beds, watching the telly, playing FIFA. 

His friend had gone in the end, moving on to another city, another life. They’re not even Facebook friends anymore. There’s just a gap where he used to be, the kind Louis pretends isn’t there. He just steps over it, steps round it, pretends it doesn’t exist. Now it’s just him in his flat, and maybe it’s okay, maybe it’s nice to have a proper bedroom and a proper living room and to play FIFA sitting on an actual sofa, but it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be more fun playing with an actual friend. 

The bath’s rubbish. He’s bored and the bubbles are a bit shit and he doesn’t know how to wash his hair without getting in the shower afterwards anyway. 

Well, this is one thing he can cross off the ‘this might help’ list. 

~*~

“Look, Louis,” Janette says, in their 1:1 after lunch. “I know you’re having trouble sleeping, but it’s started to affect your work. You need to get a handle on this, or at least figure out a way to minimise the impact on your daily life. Neither of us want to go down the performance management route, do we?”

Louis’s eyes hurt. He’d been awake since 3.30 that morning. “No,” he says finally, although he’s got no fucking idea how he’s supposed to stop it affecting his daily life. He’s so fucking tired he could throw up with it.

“Have you been to the doctor’s?”

“No.” What’s he supposed to say? _I can’t sleep through the night?_ He’s not a baby. He just can’t fucking sleep. 

“Maybe you should,” Janette says. She at least looks vaguely sympathetic, but Louis’s not an idiot. He’s kept this job for two years now, which is about twenty months longer than he’s managed to keep any of the other jobs he’s ever had. He’s only kept it through a weird mixture of inertia and keeping his head below the parapet. Calling attention to himself isn’t going to do him any favours, regardless of whether or not he can sort the sleeping out. 

“Maybe,” he says, and picks at the skin by his thumbnail. 

~*~

“Hello, you’ve reached Insomnia Alliance. I’m Nick. Thanks for calling tonight. How can I help you?”

“It’s Louis,” Louis says. “I spoke to you last week. You probably don’t remember.”

There’s a pause. “I remember.” He sounds tired. “Hi, Louis. How’s the sleeping?”

“I’m calling you in the middle of the night, what do you think?”

“Still bad, then.” 

“Pretty bad, yeah.” Louis’s on the sofa this time, a blanket pulled over his knees. It’s four in the morning. 

“The routine I suggested didn’t do you any favours, then?”

Louis shrugs. “Had a bath.”

“Didn’t help?”

“I was cleaner.”

“Well, that’s a thing.”

“Suppose.” Louis sighs. “How do you get to sleep?”

“I work nights,” Nick says. “I’m always at the wrong end of the clock.”

“Do you like it?”

“Working nights?” Nick doesn’t say anything for a while. “At least there’s better telly when I can’t sleep. _Cash in the Attic_. That kind of thing.”

“It’s rubbish, innit?”

“ _Cash in the Attic_? It’s all right.”

“No,” Louis says. “Not sleeping.”

“Yeah,” Nick says. “It’s properly shit.”

“Are you allowed to swear?”

“Probably not.” He lets out a breath. “Have you tried meditation?”

“Do I sound like the kind of guy who’s tried meditation?”

Nick laughs. “You sound like the kind of guy who might be willing to try something new if it helps you sleep. There’s all sorts of apps for your phone. You got an iPhone or an Android?”

“IPhone,” Louis says. “Pay way too much for this stupid contract for it.”

“Don’t we all. There’s an app called Calm, it’s supposed to have stuff that helps you sleep. But you can just google, there’s loads out there. Youtube has lots of guided meditation stuff too.”

Louis picks at the thread of his tracksuit bottoms. They’re only cheap ones, Primark, and they lose their fluff after a few washes. “They’re going to performance manage me, I think, at work. Cos I’m knackered all the time.” There’s more to it than that. His concentration’s shot and he can’t focus and he forgets stuff. He feels sick and is tired and listless and slow to finish. Janette keeps having to pull him up on stuff. “Think on that. Out on my ear because I can’t fucking sleep through the night.”

“I’m sorry,” Nick says, after a moment. “That sounds really rubbish.”

“Yeah,” Louis says. “Doesn’t it just.”

“Do you like your job?”

Louis snorts. “What, like, if I didn’t like it wouldn’t matter if I was out on my ear?”

“No, I—“ Nick stops. “I just meant. Is your job a source of stress or anxiety? Because that can sometimes be a factor in sleepless nights.” He was back to reading off his cue cards again. 

“It’s a job,” Louis says. “One I wasn’t completely crap at, which makes a change from every other job I’ve ever had, so. Yeah.”

“Sometimes anxiety can keep us awake at night.”

“Sometimes so can insomnia,” Louis says. 

“Yeah,” Nick says softly. “I know.”

“I should go.”

“Try the meditation,” Nick says. “It might help.”

“Yeah,” Louis says, even though he probably won’t. “All right.”

~*~

“Find a comfortable position,” the app says, in a nasal mid-atlantic twang. “It could be sitting, or lying down, or even walking. If you can, close your eyes. If you can’t, relax your gaze down towards the floor.”

Louis is lying on his bed. It’s two in the morning. The duvet’s pulled up over him, his phone’s on the bedside table, talking to him, and he feels like an idiot. 

“Deep breath in,” the app says. “And breathe out. Deep breath in.”

God, this is ridiculous. 

“And breathe out. Focus on all the tension in your body. Let the tension go, bit by bit. The tension in your shoulders. Breathe in. Breathe out. The tension in your jaw.”

This is so stupid. He’s going to call that stupid insomnia hotline up right now and tell them how stupid this is. 

“If intrusive thoughts keep popping up, just observe them and bring yourself back to the breathing. You’re the observer. You are not trapped by your thoughts.”

Louis is fucking trapped by his thoughts. He’s trapped by the ones that keep saying _this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid_ over and over again. 

“Breathe in,” the app says. “And breathe out.”

Louis, too exhausted to do anything else, breathes out. 

~*~

“Hello, this is Insomnia Alliance. My name’s Nick.”

“Does anyone else work there, or is it just you?” Louis asks. It’s midnight. It’s Friday. Louis isn’t supposed to want to be asleep. He’s supposed to be living it large, having a big one, powering through to the early hours. 

Earlier on, he’d opened a tin of spaghetti hoops and eaten them out of the can with a fork, right there leaning up against the counter in his kitchen, too exhausted to do anything else. 

“Louis?”

“Oh good,” Louis says. “I’m a regular.”

“You are,” Nick says. “And there are usually three of us working the switchboard.”

“But I just keep getting you.”

“Good luck, I think,” Nick says. “Getting the best one every time.”

Louis tries to smile. He’s sort of ridiculously close to tears. He just wants to fucking sleep. “How’d you end up working nights on a switchboard, anyway?”

“Oh, you know,” Nick says. “Wanted to work in radio, dreams turned to dust, that kind of thing.”

“Sorry.”

“Eh,” Nick says, which could mean anything. There’s a pause. “How’s the sleep been, Louis? Not talked to you in a few days.”

“Same as always,” Louis says. “Do you think I’m miserable because I’m tired, or tired because I’m miserable?”

“Don’t know,” Nick says. 

“Do they train you for this, or did you just literally walk in off the street?”

“There’s training,” Nick says. “Never was that good at learning stuff though.”

Louis tries to laugh. “God,” he says. “Are you as fucked up as me? You sound like you might be.” It’s the middle of the night. Nothing matters in the middle of the night. It’s hardly real. 

“Maybe,” Nick says. “Probably.” 

“I hate my job,” Louis says softly. “I hate my flat. My friend fucked off and I don’t know if it was my fault but I hate it here.”

“Louis—“

“I’m all by myself,” Louis says, “and I’m so fucking sick of it I don’t know what to do anymore.”

There’s silence, just for a moment, and then Louis hangs up. 

~*~

A week later, he calls back, and he gets someone called Julia. She’s better at her job than Nick is. 

Afterwards, Louis doesn’t sleep at all. 

~*~

He spends Saturday morning in bed, the radio on low, dozing in and out of sleep. Every time he wakes up, he feels more tired than he did the last time. It’s shit. 

He lies there for a while, staring up at the ceiling. His mum wouldn’t approve of this, him laying about and feeling sorry for himself. _Get out and blow the cobwebs away_ , she’d say if he could be bothered to ring her right now. _Get your arse out of bed and do something_. 

“Mum,” he says, which sounds like a whine even though she isn’t there to listen to him. He buries his face in his pillow. 

It’s a while before he moves again. 

“Okay,” he says finally. “Just this once, I’ll do what you say first time.”

~*~

He ends up in a pub down by the canal, the kind with a beer garden and good ales on tap. It’s the kind of pub he doesn’t normally go in because he doesn’t give a shit about an IPA. The pub’s full, but the beer garden’s empty because it’s cold. He sits out on one of the picnic tables with his coat zipped up to the chin and his baseball cap pulled down low, and smokes. 

After a while, hungry, he finishes his cigarette and heads inside to the bar. He wants another pint and some kind of burger. 

There’s a guy there already, leaning on the bar and waiting on a packet of crisps from the back. Louis can see the barmaid breaking into a new box of cheese and onion. 

“What can I get you?” The barman asks, tilting his chin in Louis’s direction. 

“You got a food menu, mate?” Louis asks. “Or, like, do you just do a burger?”

The guy waiting on his crisps is looking at him, puzzled. He’s tall, with a bit of a quiff, and shadows under his eyes. He’s in a big stripy jumper with too-long sleeves. His jeans have holes in the knees.

Louis wrinkles his nose at him, and interrupts the barman, who’s giving him a long list of nonsensical burger options, none of which sound like a Big Mac. He’s not bothered about focaccia, or whether his chips come with rosemary. He just wants a burger. He holds his hand up. “Just a burger and chips and a pint of Stella, please.”

God, he’s tired. 

“Louis?” The crisps guy says. The barmaid’s back, but he’s ignoring her cheese and onion in favour of looking vaguely puzzled in Louis’s direction. “Can’t-sleep-Louis?”

Louis knows that voice. “Nick,” he says. “Have-you-tried-meditation-Nick.”

“Yeah,” Nick says. The last time they’d spoken, Louis had hung up on him. “You all right?”

 _No_ , Louis thinks. _I’m not_. “You know,” he says. “Tired.”

“Yeah,” Nick says. 

Louis nods at the barman. “You want anything?”

“I’m good,” Nick says. “Just with a friend. She wanted crisps. Well, the baby wants crisps. Baby wants a Wagon Wheel. Pregnancy, you know. Excuse to eat crisps, mainly.”

“Okay,” Louis says. He doesn’t know what to say to someone he’s only spoken to in the middle of the night. He hands his card to the barman in return for a pint of Stella and a jam jar with a wooden spoon in it. “I’ll be outside,” he says, and the barman nods, handing him his card back.

“We’ll find you.” 

“Enjoy your crisps,” Louis says. He vaguely avoids Nick’s eyes, ducking his gaze a little to head back outside. 

He sits down at the same picnic table he was at before, pint in front of him, and lights another cigarette. It’s misty out, kind of damp. It’s cold. At least it’s keeping him awake. 

His burger arrives after a while, and he eats the burger in about six bites before starting in on the chips. They’re lukewarm and boring, just oven chips, but he’s drowned them in ketchup so it doesn’t much matter. 

“Anyone sitting here?” 

Louis looks up. It’s Nick, Nick from the middle of the night. Nick. He’s holding a bottle of Becks. “Only my imaginary mates,” Louis says. “They’ll budge up if you want to sit down, though.”

Nick sits down a little gingerly. “Not very warm out here,” he says. 

“You get used to it,” Louis says. “Where’s your friend?”

“Turned out baby really did want a Wagon Wheel. She’s gone home via Sainsbury’s.”

“You didn’t want to go with her?”

“Nah,” Nick says. “Thought I’d come out here and find you instead.”

Louis manages half a smile at that. “Thought of some more weird shit for me to try in the middle of the night?”

“Not really. Can I steal a chip?”

Louis pushes the plate a little closer. There’s salad too, because Louis never eats the salad. “Help yourself.” He’s pretty much done, anyway. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

Nick makes a face. “Age old question, that. Probably. It’s my day off, though, and I just couldn’t face trying.”

“Fair,” Louis says. He looks down at the table, running his fingernail over the edge of the wood. “I rang back, you know. In the end. To say…” he trails off. “I got someone else.”

“Thought maybe you’d just remembered how to sleep.”

Louis shakes his head. “No,” he says softly. “Sorry, by the way. For hanging up.”

“I worried,” Nick says. “You were upset.”

“I was tired.”

“Same difference,” Nick says. 

“Yeah,” Louis says. He waits. “Funny this, innit? You and me. Both here.”

Nick glances at him. “Nice, though. At least I think so.”

“Saved me from sitting out here on my own all afternoon.”

“Saved you from them chips too,” Nick says. “They’re pretty rank.”

“There he was, going on and on about wanky stuff like focaccia and rosemary and it’s just a burger and oven chips. Bet I paid a wank tax on it.”

“Probably.” It doesn’t stop him from stealing another one. “Do you live round here, then?”

“Not far. Tried to channel my mum. She’d tell me to stop feeling sorry for myself and get my arse out of bed, so I did.”

“Picked a nice day for it.” Nick did a little sweeping glance at the dank Saturday afternoon. 

“Imagine, though, if I’d had to sit out here with loads of people who’d managed to sleep through the night at some point in the last month. I’d have been well miserable. And well jealous. At least now it’s just me.”

“And me,” Nick says. “I had to get the bus here. My mate lives round the corner.”

“Baby wants a Wagon Wheel,” Louis nods. “How long on the bus?”

“Twenty minutes. Probably could have walked it, but I was knackered.”

“It’s rubbish, innit? Being this tired.”

“Like wading through treacle.”

“Swimming through mud.”

Nick laughs. “Do you want another drink? Or some crisps?”

“Could murder a cup of tea. Do you think they do that here? Or, I mean, like, I’ll have another pint. Except it’ll probably put me to sleep.”

“There’s a cafe? Down the road. Cup of tea and a biscuit. Nice, that.”

Louis smiles. His eyes are tired. Everything just sort of aches with how tired he is of being tired. Nick’s dead nice, though, and perhaps even better in the middle of the day than he is in the middle of the night. 

“I’d like that,” he says, and Nick smiles back. 

~*~

The cafe is all right, mismatched tables and chairs and chintz tea cups and a full range of leaf teas. 

Nick ums and ahhs over which one to go for. Pu Erh is, apparently, what Victoria Beckham used to swear by. It smells like fish. Louis wrinkles his nose over the little test pot of tea leaves he’s sniffing. 

“She used to live on prawns,” Nick says. “Probably didn’t even notice the smell.” 

“I’m not having that one,” Louis says. He’s still cold, even though he’s wrapped up warm and he’s not sitting outside anymore. It’s started to rain. 

“Lapsang souchang?” Nick waves the little pot under Louis’s nose. 

“Bacon and bonfires,” Louis says. “Have you just got a bog-standard tea bag, love?”

The girl behind the counter rolls her eyes. “There’s a breakfast blend,” she says. “It’s got an Assam base—“

“That’ll do,” Louis says. “And a chocolate muffin, please. And whatever he’s having.”

Nick looks deliciously pleased, which Louis likes. He hovers around the counter whilst Nick dithers over a piece of chocolate chip shortbread and an oat and raisin cookie and a white chocolate brownie. A blondie. He doesn’t bother pointing out that an oat and raisin cookie is an affront to biscuits everywhere. He surely doesn’t need to. It must be obvious to anyone. In the end, he goes for a pot of golden Assam and a piece of chocolate chip shortbread that’s approximately the size of Louis’s head. 

They sit right at the back of the cafe, perched on two white, wooden chairs with flowery seat patterns. Nick’s knee bumps into Louis’s under the table. 

“How’d you end up working at the, you know?” Louis asks. “The insomnia thing.”  
Nick shrugs. They’ve each got a little china rest for their tea strainer, and a mismatching cup and saucer, and their own tea pot. There’s a bowl of sugar cubes. Louis chews on one for no reason other than they’re there, and he can. 

“Dunno,” he says. “Just sort of ended up there.”

“Answering the phone in the middle of the night?”

“Was trying for the radio, wasn’t I? Had an interview for a really good place. Made a bit of a mess of it. Had a big falling out with my friend. Just sort of found myself looking for a place to live and a job all at the same time, and I don’t know, I just sort of thought that getting paid for talking to people was kind of the same as what I wanted to do, so.”

“Is it?” Louis asks. “The same?”

“Nah,” Nick says. He taps his fingers against his teapot. “You think it’s brewed yet?”

“Dunno. Pour it and see.” 

“A tea connoisseur, I see.”

“I’m good at teabags.” 

Nick smiles at that. He fiddles with his tea strainer. “It’s nice,” he says. “Meeting you.”

Louis swallows. “Yeah,” he says. “It is.”

They pour their tea out and have an argument about whether it’s milk then tea or tea then milk if you’re pouring from a teapot. Nick goes milk first, and Louis tea. There’s no comparison group, so they both maintain they’ve won. 

The stereo’s playing Arctic Monkeys. 

“I miss sleep,” Louis says. 

“I miss the daytime,” Nick says. 

Louis makes a face. “What are we doing with our lives, eh?”

“God knows.” He pauses. “If I ask you for your number, will you give it to me?”

“Depends what you’re going to do with it.”

“Dunno,” Nick says. “Thought I might go well weird and just ring you or something.”

“Not text?”

Nick frowns. “Maybe,” he says. “If you insist.”

Louis roots around in his pocket. His phone’s a bit beaten up, scratched and missing a case. He unlocks it and slides it across the table. “There you go.”

“What’s this for?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Putting your number in, idiot. Give me yours.”

“Charmed, I’m sure,” Nick says, but he’s smiling. He’s also sliding his phone across the table. He hasn’t got a case either. His background’s a picture of a mountain. 

Louis puts his number in, and starts typing in his name followed by a sunglasses emoji. 

“Cool,” Nick says. “Now I can text you in the middle of the night.”

“When you’re working?”

Nick shrugs. “We’re not massively busy. It’s only a tiny charity. Don’t know how long it’s going to last, if I’m honest. There’s three of us every night.”

“Are they nice?”

“They’re all right. Julia’s favourite band is Coldplay.”

“Nah. That can’t be right. No one’s favourite band is Coldplay.”

“Julia’s is,” Nick says. “There’s this guy called Phil I work with sometimes, I’m pretty sure he’s a vampire. I don’t think he’s seen the sun since 1947. He’s got skin like glass. Or, like, milk. I don’t know. I don’t like it when he’s on shift with me.”

“Oh god, if I ring in and get him, I’ll know to run.”

“I’d never sleep again,” Nick says. “I don’t think he has a problem working nights.”

“My mum used to work nights sometimes. She’s a midwife.”

“Got to love babies to do that.”

“I do,” Louis says. “She does too.”

Nick cocks his head to one side. “You never wanted to be a midwife like her, then?”

“Dunno,” Louis says. “Never really tried or did that well in school. Just liked having a laugh instead.”

“What do you do now?”

Louis lifts his shoulder, then drops it again. He eats a bit of his muffin. “Work for the council. Team Support Officer. Thought it might be interesting cos it’s with the Education Welfare Team. I like kids.”

“Is it?”

“Not really.” He drinks a bit of his tea. He’s going to try his next cup milk first, like Nick suggested. “You think I might make a good nurse?”

“Maybe,” Nick says. “If you wanted to do it.”

Louis’s too tired to contemplate life changes. He just knows he could go his entire life without updating another database and it would be too fucking soon. “Would you try for the radio again?”

“Made a mess of it the first time.”

“I’m a mess all of the time. You get used to it.”

Nick smiles. It’s a nice smile, even though it’s tired around the edges. “I don’t think you’re a mess.”

Louis bumps his foot into Nick’s. “You’re nice,” he says. 

“Nah,” Nick says. “You are.”

 _Nah_ , Louis thinks. _Just lonely as fuck_. 

~*~

They get thrown out of the cafe after an hour. There’s an event on, apparently, someone from Youtube. They walk down the road in the drizzle until they get to the bus stop. Louis hunches his shoulders up against the cold. 

“You want to come back to mine?” Nick asks. “I could do us a frozen pizza.”

Louis’s heart contracts a little. He swallows. “You sure?”

“Don’t know how nice it is, but I went to the shop this morning. Thought I’d treat myself. Got some dips and Doritos too. And some cheesecake.” He looks oddly hopeful, and Louis shoves his hands deep in his pockets. “Might even have some potato smiley faces in the freezer.”

“Should have mentioned them first,” Louis says. He bumps his elbow into Nick’s. “Yeah, all right.”

Nick’s face curves into a smile. “Cool,” he says. “Might even have a couple of beers in.”

“A regular party,” Louis says. The bus is coming. “Is it this one?”

“Yeah,” Nick says, sticking his arm out. “We could watch some telly, too.”

“Sounds nice,” Louis says, as the bus pulls up and they climb on. “You got any proper tea bags, though, or do we have to have that pu erh stuff?”

“Typhoo,” Nick says, picking two seats almost at the back. 

Louis wrinkles his nose. “Is there a shop near yours? I’ll get you some better ones. As a thank you, like.”

Nick grins at him, sitting down. “A tea snob, are you?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, and sits down next to him. He elbows Nick in the side. “Might even get you some biscuits to go with them.”

“You’re spoiling me,” Nick says, and Louis grins. 

“Nah,” he says. “Just making your life better.”

~*~

There’s a little Sainsbury’s at the end of Nick’s road, so Louis gets tea bags and some custard creams and a packet of digestives. The selection isn’t brilliant and Louis doesn’t really know what he’s doing, or why, so he limits himself to adding another pint of milk when Nick says he’s not sure how much he’s got in. 

It’s still raining outside, and Louis hunches his shoulders up against the weather, carrier bag clutched in his other hand. At least his anorak has a hood; Nick’s just getting rained on. 

“Nice weather for it,” Louis says, in the end. Rain drips off his hood. 

“Perfect weather for going home and not going out again,” Nick agrees. He’s wet through. 

Louis’s heart feels sort of warm, though. It’s nice. 

~*~

Nick’s flat is sort of tiny and squashed. He’s got a flatmate, Sally, but she’s away for the weekend visiting her boyfriend. He lives in Basingstoke, apparently, and Sally’s thinking about moving there. The flat’s sort of obviously more Sally’s than Nick’s; it’s photo frames that say ‘friends’ in jaunty little letters over groups of girls toasting the camera, it’s the kind of purple throws and pink cushions that Louis can already tell don’t exactly fit with Nick’s style. It’s a bookshelf with lots of Jenny Colgan novels. 

“I don’t usually sit in here much,” Nick says, once he’s towel dried his hair and changed his jumper and got the kettle on in the kitchen. Louis is poking around in the living room, looking at the pictures and the books and the DVDs. 

“Don’t you get on?”

“Kind of,” Nick says. “Work opposite ends of the day, don’t we? And she was here first. We have our tea together sometimes, but we usually have it in the kitchen. I usually sit in my room.”

Nick doesn’t strike Louis as the kind of person who likes being stuck in his room. 

“You got a telly in there?” Louis asks. 

“Course,” Nick says. “Got pretty much all my stuff in there.”

“Didn’t think this was much like you,” Louis says. He waves a copy of _Legally Blonde_ on DVD at Nick. He’s still poking through the shelves.

“Oh, that’s mine,” Nick says. “You’ve seen it, right?”

“Nope.” Louis takes another look. “Is it good?”

“It’s funny,” Nick says. “You hungry yet, or do you just want a biscuit with your tea?”

“Biscuits,” Louis says, putting the DVD back. It’s a nice enough flat, but it doesn’t really fit Nick’s personality. “Do you want to sit in your room?”

Nick looks relieved. “All right.”

Louis trails him into the kitchen. The Sainsbury’s bag is on the counter next to the kettle. There are two mugs lined up with tea bags in, but the kettle’s not finished yet. There’s a fridge magnet that says _laugh loud, smile often, dream big, and be happy_. 

He pokes at it with his finger. 

“It’s Sal’s,” Nick says, pouring water over the tea bags. 

Louis just nods. “Be nice though, wouldn’t it?”

“What?”

“Dunno,” Louis says. “Being happy.”

“Not being knackered all the time,” Nick says. He opens the custard creams, helping himself to one before offering them to Louis. 

He takes two. “Waking up and not being exhausted.”

“Imagine.”

Louis manages what he’s fairly sure is a lopsided smile. “I’m trying.”

“You want to watch telly in my room?”

“All right,” Louis says, and he leans on the counter and watches as Nick makes them tea. 

~*~

Nick’s bedroom is even better for poking around than the living room. It’s very neat, which Louis hadn’t really expected, and it’s a pretty good size with a lot of pictures on the wall. 

Louis opens his wardrobe door. “You’re really tidy,” he says, because all of Nick’s clothes are hung up. There are a lot of stupid shirts. 

“I am,” Nick agrees, putting their tea down on the bedside table. He doesn’t seem to mind Louis poking through his things, which is nice because Louis likes poking and doesn’t want to stop. 

Louis produces a zebra print shirt. “Do you actually wear this?”

“Only on special occasions.”

Louis nods. “Nice,” he says, and moves his attention on to the bookshelves. Even Nick’s magazines are stacked up neatly on one of the shelves. He has some of those little fat art books that are full of pictures. Louis flicks through them. “Lot of dicks in this one.”

“I like dicks,” Nick says, pulling on a green hoodie.

Louis flicks back through the dick book. Art dicks are always quite small. “Me too.”

There’s a pause. “Good,” Nick says. “That’s nice. That we both like them.”

“Isn’t it,” Louis says, distracted. He turns the page to the side. “Is that supposed to happen?”

Nick cocks his head to one side. “Dunno. Mine doesn’t do that.”

“Mine neither.” He puts the book back on the shelf. There’s a little framed picture of a much younger Nick with a guy and a girl. “They your mum and dad?”

Nick snorts. “My sister and my brother.”

“Bit of an age difference.”

“Mum calls me her vodka baby.”

Louis grins. “Yeah?” 

“Too much of it one time and I showed up.”

“Nice entrance.” Louis puts the picture down. “I’m the oldest. I’ve got sisters.”

“Yeah?”

Louis normally gets the pictures out right now, but he doesn’t. His phone stays in his pocket. “Yeah.”

Nick smiles. It’s a bit lopsided. “You warm enough?” He’s holding out another hoodie. “Not damp?”

Louis isn’t damp or cold. “A bit,” he says, holding his hand out. “Do you mind?”

“Nah,” Nick says. “Offer a full service to guests, I do. Full range of layers for when you get caught in the rain.”

His hoodie is too big for Louis, but he doesn’t care. It’s nice and smells fresh, like washing powder. He keeps the hood up, shoving his hands into the pocket. 

“Nice,” Nick says. 

“Yeah,” Louis says. “What do you want to watch?”

Nick’s eyes light up. “Bake Off?”

Louis’s never seen it. He doesn’t mean to sound dubious. He doesn’t really bake. 

“It’s my favourite,” Nick says, already sitting down on the bed and reaching for his laptop. “I’ve got them all on here.”

Louis sits down on the end of the bed. He doesn’t take his hands out of his hoodie. “Never seen it.”

Nick looks outraged. “Good thing you met me, then. Get yourself up here. Crash course, here we come.”

“Fine,” Louis says, and reaches for his tea. 

~*~

Nick’s bed is nice and comfy and smells fresh. Louis hasn’t changed his sheets in about six months, but here he has two pillows to prop himself up with, a cup of tea, and the biscuits on a plate and the laptop in-between them. Nick’s talking to himself, weighing up one series over another, and Louis doesn’t listen to the intricacies of what he’s saying, curling up on the pillows instead. He picks out two biscuits carefully, one custard cream and one digestive, and weighs up which to eat first. He has half the digestive in one large bite, and brushes the crumbs away with the back of his hand as Nick decides on an episode and sets it all up. 

“You ready?” Nick asks. 

Louis rolls his eyes. “As I’ll ever be,” he says, but he’s smiling. He hasn’t had anyone just to watch telly with - even if it’s the kind of telly he’d never watch by himself - in a very long time. 

“It’s the fucking best,” Nick tells him, settling down on the bed next to him. He reaches for a custard cream. On the laptop, Mel and Sue are telling them it’s time for The Great British Bake Off. 

Louis pulls his hood up and settles in for the duration. 

~*~

He gets sleepy sometime after the one in the hat gets sent home. 

“It was the hat’s fault,” Nick tells him, moving the plate of biscuits out of the way and setting up the next episode. “Proper stupid hat, that was.”

“Wanker hat,” Louis says sleepily. His eyes feel heavy. “Knobhead hat.”

Nick hums in agreement as the next episode starts. “I could be a baker,” he says. 

“I can’t cook,” Louis says. It’s mostly the truth. The rest of it is just that he can’t be bothered when it’s just for him. He tucks his hands inside his sleeves. He’s got cold. 

“Not at all?”

Louis wrinkles his nose. “Not exciting stuff.” He scratches his thigh. Jeans aren’t that comfy for laying about in all afternoon. “I mean, like— it’s just me, innit? Not much point.”

“Dunno,” Nick says. “I think it’s nice to do nice stuff for yourself. If you’re, like, by yourself.”

“Always by myself,” Louis says. He picks at Nick’s duvet, glances up at him, then back at the laptop. “Hate it.”

Nick bumps his elbow into Louis’s. “Not by yourself now,” he says softly. 

“No,” Louis says. “It’s nice, this.”

“Yeah,” Nick says, “Dead nice.”

Louis’s eyes hurt. 

He’s asleep before the end of the signature bake. 

~*~

When he wakes up, there’s a blanket over him, a knitted one, and the laptop’s still playing Bake Off. Nick’s asleep next to him, breathing softly into Louis’s shoulder. He hasn’t got any blanket at all. The room’s cold. 

Louis rubs at his eyes with his fists. He’s so consistently and revoltingly exhausted that he feels sick with it when he wakes up, his body reminding him that nothing short of a month of ten hour sleeps will be enough. He’s got no idea how long he’s been asleep. There are still a lot of people in the Bake Off tent, and it’s dark outside Nick’s bedroom, but it’s late enough in the year that it was dark when they started. The lamp’s on. 

It’s not fair that Nick’s got his arms wrapped around himself and no blanket though. They should be able to share. He sits up, reaching for the laptop so that he can try and tug the blanket out over them both before settling the laptop down between them. 

_There_ , he thinks. _That’s better_. 

“You fell asleep,” Nick says groggily, less than a minute later. 

Louis rolls his eyes. “So did you,” he says. “I thought you were still asleep.”

“Light sleeper,” Nick says. He snuggles down under the blanket. “Don’t ever want to work another night shift in my life.”

Louis sighs. “Yeah,” he says. He settles down, trying to sort the blanket out so that they’re fully covered. It’s not quite big enough. “This all right?”  
Nick yawns. “I’m fine with it if you are,” he says. “Mates now, aren’t we?”

“Mates,” Louis says. He nods. There’s a pause. “Mates should know surnames, right?”

“Grimshaw,” Nick yawns again. He pokes a long finger at the back of Louis’s hand. “Sometimes people call me Grimmy.”

“You want me to?”

“If you want,” Nick says. “Like it when you call me Nick, though. Got a good accent, you do.”

Louis grins. “Nick,” he says. “Grimmy. Nick. I like Nick.”

“Like it,” Nick says. “What’s yours?”

“Tomlinson. Louis Tomlinson.”

“Sorted. Mates.”

“Mates,” Louis says, and grins. 

~*~

After Dorret gets booted off Bake Off, Nick buries his face in Louis’s bicep and groans. “I’m knackered,” he says, nose pressed against Louis’s hoodie. 

“Same,” Louis says. 

“Always fucking knackered,” Nick says. “You hungry?”

“Could eat a thing.”

“How many things? Got pizza. Doritos and dip. Potato smiley faces.”

“I told you,” Louis says. “Start with the potato smiley faces.”

“Next time I will,” Nick says, and Louis feels oddly warm on the inside. “Come on. I promised you a frozen pizza.”

In the kitchen, Nick faffs about with the oven and the radio and Louis flips through the post on the table and the bits and pieces stuck to the front of the fridge. 

“There’s a couple of beers in there,” Nick says, nodding towards the fridge. “You can do the honours.”

Louis stops leafing through Nick’s mail and gets the beer out instead. He likes that Nick’s letting him poke around. There’s a couple of cans of Stella inside and he cracks them both open. 

“You’re probably classier than me and want a glass or summat,” Louis says. 

“Nah,” Nick says, taking the beer. “Can’s fine when you’re having potato smiley faces.”

“It’s nice, this,” Louis says, elbows resting on the counter. He takes a drink. “Food, and stuff. Your flat.”

“Nice having someone to cook for,” Nick says. “If we do it again, I’ll make you something.”

“You’re making me something now.”

“No, like, a proper thing. Better than a frozen pizza.”

“Like what?” Louis tries not to think about doing this again. He hasn’t had a friend in ages. Like, the world’s just kind of got smaller around him, and he’s just sort of been trapped in the middle of it. Nick feels a bit like opening the curtains and remembering there’s a world out there. 

“Dunno. What do you fancy? What do you like?”

“Bog standard stuff. Like, spag bol. Pies. Like a roast.”

“Who doesn’t like a roast?” Nick’s looking a little thoughtful, even as he’s tipping the remains of a bag of smiley faces onto a baking tray. “We could do a roast. Like, chicken? How hard can it be?”

“Dead easy, I reckon,” Louis says. “What’s to fuck up?”

Nick grins. “Nothing,” he says. “So. Do we have a deal? Next time we do a roast?”

Louis’s heart’s pounding. “Yeah,” he says. “So long as there’s a few roasties and a Yorkshire pudding. I’m not doing it if there isn’t.”

“Well,” Nick says, shoving the baking tray in the oven. “Goes without saying. Few Aunt Bessie’s.” He glances at Louis. “Do you like wine?”

“I’ve got beer.”

“With the roast, idiot.”

“Could do,” Louis says. He looks down at his socked feet. “I could bring pudding.”

“Be nice, that,” Nick says. “Bit of pudding. Something with custard.”

Louis nods. “Definitely.” He glances at Nick. “We should pick a day.”

“Agree on a date,” Nick says carefully. 

Louis bumps his elbow into Nick’s. “Sooner the better,” he says, without meeting Nick’s eye, and he fumbles for his can of beer. 

“Yeah,” Nick says, looking the other way. “The sooner, the better.”

~*~

They eat in the living room, flicking through the Saturday night telly and by unspoken consensus not really stopping on anything for more than a few minutes. The pizza’s fine, but Louis makes little ketchup hats for his potato smiley faces and Nick takes a picture on his phone. 

“We should watch a film,” Louis says, once he’s done with the pizza and the smiley faces and they’ve had cheesecake for afters. He could go home; he doesn’t really want to outstay his welcome, so he’s a bit more hesitant about his request than any old version of Louis would be. 

“Yes, definitely,” Nick says. “Have a look at what we have. Only about three of them are mine, but Sal won’t mind if we watch one of hers. Do you want another beer, or, like, a cup of tea or something?”

He wants another beer, but he’d had a couple at the pub earlier, and another one with food, and he’s been so tired recently that he feels sick a lot more than he should. Stupid fucking insomnia. “Tea would be good. If you’re making one.”

“I’ll put the kettle on.” Nick gathers up their plates and things. “You pick us something.”

He ends up with a shortlist of _Iron Man_ , _Sweet Home Alabama_ , and _Hot Fuzz_. Nick and Sally’s combined DVD collection is only a shelf, and _Sweet Home Alabama_ is one of his mum’s favourites. 

“Nice choices,” Nick says, coming back with their tea. “Eclectic.”

He shrugs. “You pick one of them.”

“Like a bit of _Iron Man_ ,” Nick says. “Bring them all through, though. Could always watch another one after.”

Louis purposefully doesn’t think about the time. “Cool,” he says instead, and follows Nick through to the bedroom. 

This time, they settle down under the blanket together, the laptop on the side, the telly on top of the chest of drawers on instead. They’ve ended up sitting closer together, Louis’s foot touching Nick’s calf. The Marvel logo flashes up across the screen. 

“Saw this at the cinema,” Louis says, elbow bumping into Nick’s.

“Me too,” Nick says. “Thought it was well ace. I was dead excited for _Avengers_ , then I got there and I thought it was boring.”

“ _Avengers_ was fucking great.”

“Or boring,” Nick suggests. 

“Rubbish,” Louis says, rolling over. “You’ve seen the rest of them, right?”

Nick makes a vaguely apologetic shoulder shrug. Louis rolls his eyes. “You’re so wrong.”

“Well,” Nick says. “Like, um. If you ever wanted to show me them. I might like them better if I was with someone who liked them.”

Louis swallows. Tony’s being vaguely smug on screen. “I could show you them.”

“That’s what I’m saying. It would be all right if you were showing them to me. Might like them more.”

“Worst that could happen is that you’re so bored you fall asleep.”

“Win all round, then,” Nick says lightly. “Now, shush, you’re talking over Iron Man.”

“He’s not Iron Man yet.”

Nick pokes him in the side. “Watch the telly.”

~*~

He dozes over some of the fight scenes at the end, waking up only when the credits are rolling. 

“How much did I miss?”

“A bit,” Nick says. He’s tucked into Louis’s side, or as much as someone can be when they’re a good few inches taller. “Do you want to stay over?”

Louis bites his lip. “Yeah?”

Nick nods, leaning in enough that he can rub his nose over Louis’s shoulder. “Good,” he says. “It’s nice, having someone to be awake with.”

“I fell asleep.”

“Semantics,” Nick says. “I’ll put the other film in in a minute. Do you want any pyjamas? Could do you a t-shirt if you wanted. Got some bottoms but they might be a bit long on you. Could roll them up, though.”

“Classy,” Louis says. He pauses, heart pounding. “If you’ve got a t-shirt, I’ll just sleep in my pants.”

“Sure,” Nick says, and the t-shirt ends up being a grey one with a French bulldog on the front under an umbrella. 

Louis goes for a wee and stares at himself in the mirror afterwards. His borrowed t-shirt is all stretched out at the neck. He’s still wearing his socks. It’s the nicest evening he’s had in forever. 

“Sal keeps a replacement toothbrush under the sink,” Nick calls from the landing. “Help yourself, but don’t chuck away the packaging. I’ll go and buy her a new one tomorrow. Need to know which one she likes.”

“I’ll buy it,” Louis calls back. “I’m the one using it.”

“And you’re my guest,” Nick says. “I’ll provide the toothbrush.” 

Louis bites his lip. He’s still watching himself in the mirror. His cheeks are flushed. “All right,” he says. “Thanks.”

When he gets back to the bedroom, Nick’s sitting on the edge of the bed in his pants and a Beyonce t-shirt. The bed’s been turned down, and the DVD’s in and showing the menu screen. The curtains are drawn, the lamp’s on, and there’s a fresh glass of water on each bedside table. 

“There’s a spare phone charger plugged in,” Nick says, almost hesitantly. 

“Thanks,” Louis says. 

“It’s Sal’s,” Nick says. He almost hops off the bed. “I’ll go clean my teeth.”

Afterwards, Louis climbs into bed and pulls the covers up. His phone’s plugged in. The menu music is muted. He’s so fucking tired, but it’s nice to be in Nick’s bed with the telly on. He plumps up the pillows and faffs around with the duvet and toes off his socks, reaching down to find them under the covers and toss them off the end of the bed. Nick doesn’t seem like the kind of person to chuck his dirty clothes on the floor, but maybe he won’t notice two little sock monsters. 

Nick comes back with the remains of the custard creams. “In case we get peckish,” he says, finding space for them on the bedside table. “It’s rubbish getting out of a warm bed.”

“It is warm,” Louis says. There’s a pause. “You should get in. You’ll get cold.”

Nick chucks him a smile, then gets into bed. He burrows down like a little woodlouse, curling up under the covers, duvet up to his nose. 

“Weirdo,” Louis says.

“Got to get warm the quickest way,” Nick says, burrowing down even smaller. 

“But then you stretch out and it’s all cold spots.”

“Not with you here,” Nick says, leaning in to press his nose to Louis’s arm. “You okay?”

“Course,” Louis says. “Might give you a shit night’s sleep, though. Can’t sleep through the night.”

“Neither can I,” Nick says. “We can keep each other company.”

“Better than ringing you at work.”

“What I’m paid for,” Nick says, but then he concedes. “This is better, though.”

“More biscuits, definitely,” Louis says. He shifts, rolling onto his side, snuggling down under the covers. “Thanks,” he says finally. “For letting me stay.”

“Anytime,” Nick says, clearing his throat. “You ready for the DVD?”

“Course,” Louis says, and hands him the remote. 

~*~

When he wakes up, the telly’s showing the DVD screensaver, the lamp’s dimmed down to its lowest setting, and Nick’s rolling over. 

“Ugh,” Nick says, “Sorry. I woke you up.”

“Or I woke you up.” Louis rolls over and buries his face in the pillow. Why can’t he fucking sleep? “What time is it?”

“Night time,” Nick says, without moving. 

“Proper clever clogs, aren’t you?” Louis rolls back over and hauls the duvet up over his shoulder. He and Nick are facing each other now. He pauses. “Thanks for leaving the light on.”

“You scared of the dark?”

“Nah,” Louis says. He’s still fucking exhausted. He feels sick with it. “Just fed up of it, that’s all.”

Nick makes a face. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Louis says. “You’re awake too.” He sighs. “If I rang you up right now, what would you suggest?”

“Warm milk, wash your face, hot water bottle, white noise app, meditation app…” he shrugs his shoulders. “You want any of them things?”

Louis shakes his head. “Just want to sleep.”

“Anything you do want?”

“A hug,” Louis says. “Can’t get that most nights.”

Nick smiles. “Can give you that. That’s dead easy. Dead nice, too.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “You’re dead nice,” he says, but he’s shifting anyway, tucking himself into Nick’s side, wrapping his arm around Nick’s middle. Nick hugs him back. 

“How’s that?”  
Louis contemplates making a face, but he skips it in favour of hiding his face in Nick’s t-shirt. “Good,” he says. It’s muffled. There’s a pause. “What would you do if I kissed you?”

“Dunno,” Nick says. “Kiss back, most likely. I mean. That’s what I’d want to do.”

Louis nods. He can smell the faded remains of Nick’s deodorant, the warmth of his skin, the lingering scent of his washing powder on his t-shirt. “Would you mind if I did? Kiss you, I mean.”

Nick’s fingers brush the nape of Louis’s neck. “I’d quite like you to, I reckon.”

Louis nods. “Okay.”

There’s another pause. “Are you going to?”

“I’m building up to it.” His voice is still muffled by Nick’s t-shirt.

Nick strokes his thumb over Louis’s skin. “We don’t have to.”

Louis pulls back. “Don’t you want to?” He’s vaguely outraged, in an exhausted kind of a way. 

“Course I do,” Nick says. “You’re gorgeous.”

Louis grins. “So are you. Well good smile.”

Nick laughs at that. He looks tired. He cups Louis’s face in his hand. “In the morning,” he says, “don’t slip out without telling me. I’m not, like, telling you that you have to stay. I just hate waking up alone.”

“I’m not planning on going anywhere.”

“Haven’t kissed me yet. You might change your mind.”

Louis makes a face. “Pretty sure I won’t.”

“Just tell me if you’re going. Please.”

“Yeah,” Louis says. “All right.” He smiles, tilting his face a little so that he’s leaning into Nick’s hand. “Going to kiss you now.”

Nick nods. “Good.”

Louis leans in and presses his mouth to Nick’s. He’s warm and sleepy and lovely. _Yes_ , he thinks, hazy and gentle, as Nick kisses him back. _Yes, yes, yes_. 

Nick tastes like sleep and, very faintly, his toothpaste from earlier. When Louis reaches for him, fingertips pressed to his jaw, he’s a little bristly beneath his touch. Louis grins into his kiss. 

“You’re really very nice,” he says, brushing Nick’s quiff away from his face. 

“Am I the best half-arsed late night insomnia-themed charity worker you’ve had the pleasure of speaking to?” Nick asks. 

“Absolutely both the best and the worst,” Louis agrees. “And by the way, I think you’d be very good on the radio." 

Nick smiles. “Well. Maybe one day I’ll give it another go.”

“Yes,” Louis says. “And maybe that one day should be pretty soon.”

“Does this look like the time and place to be talking about our future career plans?”

Louis keeps running his fingers through Nick’s hair. He rests his elbows on Nick’s shoulders. “Got to do something to while away the hours. Might as well be this.”

“Thought we were kissing?”

“Comes with a side order of job advice. You tell me how to fall asleep and I tell you how to… I don’t know, get away with not telling me how to fall asleep as a job anymore.”

“It’d be nice if I wasn’t getting paid for talking to you in the middle of the night.”

Louis makes a face. “Suppose. Tell you a secret, though. Quite liked talking to you in the middle of the night. And your stupid advice.”

“Might have worked, you never know.” Nick slides his hands down Louis’s sides until they come to rest on his hips. “Anyway. Here’s a bit of information they don’t tell me to give out when I’m at work—“

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Nick says. “You know what can help you get to sleep? Orgasms.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “If you think I haven’t tried wanking myself to sleep, Nick, then you’d be a hundred per cent wrong. I’ve tried it, like, a lot.”

“Haven’t we all,” Nick says. “And anyway. I wasn’t talking about wanking yourself to sleep. Well. Unless you, like, want to. Safe space, this. If it helps, like. I quite like helping you get to sleep. If that involves you like, rubbing one out, I think we can run to that.”

Louis makes a face. “You’re really quite weird, you know that?”

“Just saying,” Nick says. “Orgasms help. They’re good at headaches as well, apparently.”

“Have you got a headache?”

“Yes, you,” Nick says. He grins, and Louis punches him in the arm. “No, but like, just saying. Most of the time I talk to people in the middle of the night and they’re just tired, you know? It’s kind of like, it’s late, it’s cold, everyone wants to be asleep. But I liked talking to you. I liked it when you rang back and I got to talk to you again. Then I saw you in that pub and I recognised your voice, and I was like, _god, you’re lovely_. And we’ve had a dead nice evening, right? You and me. Liked every bit of it.”

Louis’s chest feels warm. “Dead nice,” he agrees. He strokes his fingers down Nick’s sternum, over his t-shirt, for no other reason than he can. “I liked every bit of it too.” He taps his thumb against Nick’s chest. “Can’t wait for our roast.”

“It’ll be a disaster,” Nick says. He sounds quite happy about it, particularly for someone awake in the middle of the night. 

“Reckon it’ll be nice, though,” Louis says. “A date like that.”

Nick glances at him. “A date like that, hey?” 

“Date like that,” Louis agrees. “You and me. Roast potatoes. Bit of custard. Proper good.”

“Kissing,” Nick says. 

Louis raises an eyebrow. 

“Just saying,” Nick says. “All good roast dinners come with kissing.”

“Put two exhausted people in a kitchen, what could possibly go wrong.”

“Fireworks all round,” Nick says. He strokes Louis’s hip. “Nah. Few burnt spuds and a bit of dry chicken. It’ll be fine with gravy. Get the Oxo in, we’ll be winners.”

“And we’ve got your Marvel day. Don’t forget that.”

“Don’t think I could,” Nick says. “You sure I’m not going to be bored?”

“Dunno,” Louis says. “You shouldn’t be, but, like, you are a bit weird.”

“Oi,” Nick says. He grins. It’s nice. “You done with kissing me, then?”

Louis wrinkles his nose. “Suppose we could get back to it.”

“God, that’s a five star review if ever I heard one.”

Louis rolls over and settles himself quite happily with his knees either side of Nick’s hips. He pulls the duvet over his shoulders, like a cloak, and there’s a rush of cold air as the outside finds its way under the covers. His dick’s half-hard, for no other reason than he’s in pretty close proximity to someone he finds really quite lovely. “You got an aversion to a handie?” 

Nick frowns. “You ever got a no when you ask that question?” He’s playing with the waistband of Louis’s pants. 

“Don’t ask it all that often, do I? But we can do something else if you want.”

“No,” Nick says. “Like a good handie. Like a bad one, too.” He tucks his fingers inside Louis’s waistband. 

“How about a mediocre one?” Louis offers, and pulls his pants down to his hips. He rolls back off of Nick so he can take them all the way off. 

“My favourite kind,” Nick rocks his hips up so he can shimmy off his underwear.

“Come the fuck on, Bridget,” Louis says, and reaches for Nick’s dick. 

Nick laughs, rocks his hips up to meet Louis’s fist, and pulls him into a kiss. 

They keep kissing, Nick’s hand wrapping around Louis’s dick, and it’s better than mediocre. It’s way better than mediocre. Louis grins against Nick’s mouth and licks his way into their kiss, and that bit’s probably revolting but Nick doesn’t seem to mind. It’s just nice, being touched, and it’s even nicer being touched by Nick. He’s tired and sleepy and so sick of never being able to sleep through the fucking night, but right now it matters less. It matters less because Nick’s here, and Louis’s being kissed, and it’s so fucking stupid because they’re both still wearing their t-shirts. He doesn’t want to sit back and take it off, though, because it’ll mean stopping kissing and stopping getting his dick touched, and stopping touching Nick. 

Nick, who’s already a little breathless, who’s lovely and kind and makes Louis tea and a frozen pizza. Who suggested meditation and a hot bath in the middle of the night. Nick, who’s got Louis’s dick in his hand, and is touching him in a way that’s definitely better than fucking mediocre and is really almost perfect. 

It’s the nicest thing that Louis’s had in ages. 

When he finally comes, it’s quiet and breathless and easy. He pulses into Nick’s hand, hips rocking forward. Nick makes a soft, strangled kind of a noise and pulls Louis in for a kiss. 

Christ. 

Nick pants into Louis’s mouth as Louis brings him off, fist slick with his own come. Nick shudders with it, groaning as Louis catches him at just the right angle. 

“Going to come,” Nick tells him, approximately two seconds after that might have been a useful pre-warning. 

Louis snorts, even as he’s wiping come onto Nick’s t-shirt. He drops down on top of him and hides his face in Nick’s neck. He’s all warm. “You made a mess,” he says. 

“You made a mess,” Nick says, poking him in the side. He sounds sleepy. “All your fault.”

“I’ll take that,” Louis says, not moving. He licks at Nick’s neck. It’s weird being naked except for his t-shirt. “But next time we have to remember to take our shirts off.”

“Next time, huh?” Nick’s reaching half-heartedly for the box of tissues on his bedside table. 

“Uh-huh,” Louis says, already half-asleep. He’s messy and he’s probably made Nick’s sheets into a proper state. He rolls off of Nick just enough that he can tuck himself into Nick’s side and Nick can pretend to clean them off. 

Nick chucks the tissues onto the floor. “It’s your fault if I step on them in the morning.”

“Your fault,” Louis echoes. He licks Nick’s arm. 

“Don’t go in the morning without telling me,” Nick says. “I hate that.”

“Promise,” Louis says, but he’s already mostly asleep, and he doesn’t hear what, if anything, Nick says back. 

~*~

It’s just after seven when Louis wakes up, which is almost but not quite a lie-in. He burrows himself into Nick’s side where it’s warm, and pulls the duvet up and over them both. Nick doesn’t stir. 

It’s still dark outside, but there’s a little shaft of light showing through the gap in the curtains, a streetlight Louis hadn’t noticed last night. At some point during the night, the DVD player’s switched itself onto standby. 

Nick makes a soft sound in his sleep, and Louis burrows closer. 

Being awake right now maybe isn’t so bad. Louis will take it. 

~*~

 _I stole your hoodie_ , Louis texts, once he’s on the bus back home. He’s full from bacon sandwiches and biscuits and lazing about under the covers for the best part of the day. He’s drunk six cups of tea and pretty much run Nick out of milk. 

Nick’s reply comes almost straight away. _Did you now_.

Louis grins. _You’ll have to come and get it back off of me x_

 _Yeah_ , Nick texts. _I absolutely will xxx_

It’s raining outside, and Louis’s tired. It’s all right. Louis’s all right. 

_It’s a date_ , he sends back. _Can’t wait_.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr post](http://magicalrocketships.tumblr.com/post/167908682508/the-sky-at-night-by-sunsetmog-nicklouis-10751).


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